Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
A Frozen poem ! Spray in crystals,
With which rock, shrub, tree, façade bristles !
A dream of beauty quite apart
From aught of painter’s, sculptor’s art ;
Spray rising from the torrent’s plunge
Makes each huge rock a marble sponge ;
Drops trickling from their dizzy height
Form rows of giant stalactite ;
Ice-forms of beauty, grandeur, grace,
Wreathing with gems fair Nature’s face.
Ice mountain rears its shimmering crest,
Fondly by winds and spray caressed ;
Adown its slope the sun-rays prance,
On its white summit sunbeams dance
With many an ardent, melting glance ;
the rapt beholder’s fancy sees
Pure Parian marble grown on trees,
Chiseled and modeled by the breeze ;
And while the waters roar and shout
The rainbow flings its ribbon out,
Like the adornment of a bride,
Hanging far down the mountain’s side.
One painter only ne’er grows old
Through summer’s heat and winter’s cold ;
One sculptor ne’er his skill has lost,
Unrivaled, grand, immortal Frost !
No other artist, unannoyed,
Could see, each year, his work destroyed ;
No other, with such patient cheer,
Would reproduce it year by year.
Source: Harvey Wendell. “Niagara in Winter,” Leslie’s Weekly Illustrated, March 24, 1898